Lowbatts
Gold Member
The People's Mem
So here we are swinging away in an FP this morning. My unknown co-looter and I when the lawn mower statist comes by. I wave, say hello and he turns off his machine and begins to tell me I am violating the law.
This is a FP set aside for people to enjoy the outdoors, not for looting the history or artifacts that belong to the people who the county sets this land aside for. He informs me I am breaking the law and must stop.
So point by point, I tried to tell him I am enjoying the outdoors. Metal detecting has a long history in these woods and all the nearby woods and there are many of us who ENJOY the outdoors this way. He repeated his claim that I was not there to enjoy the land the county set aside for "the people" but to despoil it in the effort to fill my pockets with loot.
So I informed him that I AM "the people" and he is using my tax dollars against me. This totally missed the mark. My tax dollars are NOT my tax dollars, it's the money the county uses to keep these places open for "the people" of which I was not one as evidenced by my activity.
"What if someone wanted to come in here and take walnuts from the trees?" he proclaimed.
"THEN LET 'EM!"
Make up your mind, Mao the Mower. Which came first, the people or the state? Well he accused me of taking the people's property and keeping it for myself. I asked him if he wanted to take the mem cent I had found and put it in "the people's coffer" and he declined.
He then insisted I was an outlaw because I was not doing the proper thing anyway. To him, the proper thing, if it was to be allowed, would be to discover an object, record it and return it to the ground. I informed him I would be glad to do that with the ton's of aluminum scrap and pulltabs, even though it sounded idiotic on it's face and would be even more idiotic in practice. Of course putting it back would constitute an act of littering.
I asked him if he had ever encountered in his young 20-some years of life, anyone else engaging in this activity and informed him I had been doing this 20+ years with no such opposition as he was offering. He told me "lots of people" are upset with what I'm doing. Yeah, I see those protest signs everywhere. It was a long argument and he was willing to spend all day telling me what a bad person I was. I wonder what he'd done if I was an armed poacher, or a bunch of thugs drinking and getting obnoxious, or even a couple bass-ackward mushroom hunters.
Never mind the fact that he was mowing an equestrian trail. Not knocking the horse riders, but it's a fair bet that there are more md'ers in the woods than horse riders and here he is on "the people's time" making that minority more comfortable.
This guy was young, totally statist because all his freedom descends from the government and worst of all, getting paid to waste my time. So me and the unknown partner left and as we were walking through the parking lot, the FP LEO drove by, nodded and waved.
BTW, I kept the mem cent. And the 1865 IH I have soaking, man is it a crusty thing. Still have the pulltabs, nails and scrap I picked up as well. If I'm a criminal and a looter just looking to fill my pouches, it sure as hell ain't costing the people a dime, unlike this guys future pension will. It's obviously not costing the county a thing either. Maybe Mother Nature wants that scrap back, I'll call someone who cares, if there's a number listed for that, and find out.
Hey A-hole lawn mower boy, it's PUBLIC SERVICE, not PUBLIC SERVES US. Get it right.
Next time I see you I might do a little role playing. I'll be the drunken Norwegian sailor, you be the baby fur seal.
So here we are swinging away in an FP this morning. My unknown co-looter and I when the lawn mower statist comes by. I wave, say hello and he turns off his machine and begins to tell me I am violating the law.
This is a FP set aside for people to enjoy the outdoors, not for looting the history or artifacts that belong to the people who the county sets this land aside for. He informs me I am breaking the law and must stop.
So point by point, I tried to tell him I am enjoying the outdoors. Metal detecting has a long history in these woods and all the nearby woods and there are many of us who ENJOY the outdoors this way. He repeated his claim that I was not there to enjoy the land the county set aside for "the people" but to despoil it in the effort to fill my pockets with loot.
So I informed him that I AM "the people" and he is using my tax dollars against me. This totally missed the mark. My tax dollars are NOT my tax dollars, it's the money the county uses to keep these places open for "the people" of which I was not one as evidenced by my activity.
"What if someone wanted to come in here and take walnuts from the trees?" he proclaimed.
"THEN LET 'EM!"
Make up your mind, Mao the Mower. Which came first, the people or the state? Well he accused me of taking the people's property and keeping it for myself. I asked him if he wanted to take the mem cent I had found and put it in "the people's coffer" and he declined.
He then insisted I was an outlaw because I was not doing the proper thing anyway. To him, the proper thing, if it was to be allowed, would be to discover an object, record it and return it to the ground. I informed him I would be glad to do that with the ton's of aluminum scrap and pulltabs, even though it sounded idiotic on it's face and would be even more idiotic in practice. Of course putting it back would constitute an act of littering.
I asked him if he had ever encountered in his young 20-some years of life, anyone else engaging in this activity and informed him I had been doing this 20+ years with no such opposition as he was offering. He told me "lots of people" are upset with what I'm doing. Yeah, I see those protest signs everywhere. It was a long argument and he was willing to spend all day telling me what a bad person I was. I wonder what he'd done if I was an armed poacher, or a bunch of thugs drinking and getting obnoxious, or even a couple bass-ackward mushroom hunters.
Never mind the fact that he was mowing an equestrian trail. Not knocking the horse riders, but it's a fair bet that there are more md'ers in the woods than horse riders and here he is on "the people's time" making that minority more comfortable.
This guy was young, totally statist because all his freedom descends from the government and worst of all, getting paid to waste my time. So me and the unknown partner left and as we were walking through the parking lot, the FP LEO drove by, nodded and waved.
BTW, I kept the mem cent. And the 1865 IH I have soaking, man is it a crusty thing. Still have the pulltabs, nails and scrap I picked up as well. If I'm a criminal and a looter just looking to fill my pouches, it sure as hell ain't costing the people a dime, unlike this guys future pension will. It's obviously not costing the county a thing either. Maybe Mother Nature wants that scrap back, I'll call someone who cares, if there's a number listed for that, and find out.
Hey A-hole lawn mower boy, it's PUBLIC SERVICE, not PUBLIC SERVES US. Get it right.
Next time I see you I might do a little role playing. I'll be the drunken Norwegian sailor, you be the baby fur seal.
"
